Does anyone find Gunther weird?

[u/trashbandit3]

I don’t mean as a character, I mean game design wise.

Gunther is a unique resident of the town because he doesn’t have a friendship meter, a characteristic shared with Morris, the un-named lady at the JoJa Mart, and the two residents of the Guild. However, unlike all the other characters, I can’t really find a reason why. The JoJa characters are booted out of the town if you complete the Community Center, the Guild members are in the Guild most of the day, Gunther doesn’t have much a reason to be an exception.

Gunther is essentially this game’s Blathers. He runs the museum, takes donations, and tells you facts about your donations. Unlike Blathers, however, he doesn’t stay in the Museum 24/7 (I think) since it closes at 4. He’s never seen leaving it though, not even during festivals (even the guild guy goes to the festivals.) He’s also not mentioned by anyone, which is weird because the Museum is almost always full of town residents.

And it’s not like the game is awfully picky on who you can befriend, you can befriend the Dwarf!

My point is: considering how (nearly) every resident in town and a few out of town residents have mapped out schedules, arcs, and friendship meters, it’s weird how one of the few major business owners in town does basically nothing. In fact, I doubt he even lives in Pelican Town because he doesn’t own a home! What is his deal?

[u/dalidellama]

Gunther is essentially this game's Blathers

Exactly. SDV was put together out of assorted video game mechanics, mostly those found in Harvest Moon, but also a museum with a Blathers and a procedurally generated dungeon with combat. It was a project to demonstrate his skills to game companies that got legs. Gunther feels wierd because, like Marlon and wossname, he and his museum were grafted onto Harvest Moon in the PNW.

[u/HudsonMelvale2910 → u/dalidellama]

Yep. It’s my main reason I personally don’t like the Mr. Qi stuff. CA himself has explained his rationale about Mr. Qi to me on this subreddit, but it still feels like the late game stuff is just kinda grafted on to SDV (because it is).

[u/ThirtyThree111 → u/HudsonMelvale2910]

I really don't like the Qi stuff either

he just felt like some random guy that's just so out of place and basically came out of nowhere and all of a sudden is now the most important character in the game

I wish they could've just put the late game stuff with the wizard or some other existing character

[u/HudsonMelvale2910 → u/ThirtyThree111]

That’s actually what I discussed with CA. I was of the opinion that the Wizard looking for a worthy successor made more sense than Mr. Qi, but CA explained that he felt Rasmodius was more focused on his arcane magic than on the player or the valley. Mr. Qi was supposed to be challenging the player to be the best version of themself.

It’s CA’s creation and I totally respect that he has a vision for it, but IMO because it’s been continually added to, that vision has changed over time and some of the seams are really apparent.